I have been meaning to do a project thread since day one of ownership but have never gotten around to it so here it goes.

I bought the car February 2015, read all the guides on here and for some reason ignored lots of it, it was the first RX8 I have driven, it was dark and a bit wet but it was local, good history and previous owner was reasonably educated about 8's.
Picked it up the same day as a mate got his winning blue 231 both agreed that we didn't need to mess with the car as they drove so well.... he kept his reasonably stock, I didn't.

First mod was a set of Volk Racing challenges 18x9 and 18x10 et30 (ish) which I wrapped in federal 595rsr tyres ( 245/35 front 255/35 rear). New wheels mean new suspension a set of Tein street basis came up cheap so nabbed them and got them on the car.

The car was handling well so I thought I better do the important things on an 8 so bought some premix, an updated starter came up on eBay very cheap, £20 I think it was . I also put together my own 585 coil kit, using ac delco coils and a bennet built mounting bracket.

A cobra exhaust they popped up on driftworks so put that on together with a Toyo sports decat pipe (which was garbage, didn't line up at all well so now have ghetto decat

Our annual Nurburgring trip was approaching so I fitted a front pair of EBC discs and hawk hps pads. To keep an eye on temps etc I fitted D1 spec oil temp and pressure as well as water temp gauges usinracing beat water temp adaptor.
I also had an Indy-actor gear display gaugeso chucked that on as well. Whilst the dash wa apart I put a earlier radio so I could use a yatour adaptor for Bluetooth goodness.

An aem cai then came up cheap so on that went as well as Lockwood grills.

Nick (13black) was passing by so I met him for a mini map in Oxford services, the car ran loads better with the dwells adjusted, was well worth the small price.

So Nurburgring happened the car was great but I had niggles which needed addressing:
Steering wheel: was all slippy and I had to wear gloves otherwise I had to grip the wheel too hard so I sent my wheel off to royal steering wheels to retrim in alcantara and beefed up a bit.
The seats did not hold me in at all well especially with wide semi slick tyres so on my return I got on eBay and found a pair of corbeau pro series xl Carbon Kevlar seats local to me, so snapped those up got some subframes, drivers side planted technologies passenger side an eBay on and chucked the seats in.

Nurburgring also taught me that my exhaust was too loud so I fitted a PZ system from Conan which mad a massive difference, lost flames but gained the ability to do trackdays.

I like shiny rare things so when an autoexe brake brace and axial flow short shifter came up for sale I snapped them up as well as ultra racing front and rear braces, ultra racing rear arb and a white line front. These all got thrown into the car and drive to 13 black for a day of biscuits and putting shiny things on my car, the drive home was fantastic think that's when I properly fell in love with the car!

The 2017 Nurburgring trip was coming up and I jumped on the group buy for 4 pot calipers which Dan fastracked for me, they gave me so much confidence on track, could brake later and harder which together with other mods gave me some of my fastest laps I have done.

Returning from Nur the only thing I could think of doing to the car was an R3 diff (and better cooling) Dan then messaged me asking if I wanted anything off his R3, I now own an R3 diff, still need to fit it.

I like bgw's but am wary of them on an rx8, I spent ages searching for one when an RE-A wing came up from an RX7 for pennies, the owner didn't quite realise what he had. A short drive to Kent and the wing was mine, a rattle can spray job later and it's on the car, even the mrs said it looks like it's meant to be there. Downside was the wing gave me front end lift when I hit triple figures so a set of N15 design vents were cut into the bonnet, they made a difference and cut cooling temps down a bit.

Next mod was an autoexe exhaust that came up on eBay for far far less than it's worth, that's on the car and I love it, car feels more responsive and sounds lovely.

I never like the accelerator feel , always felt that it had too much travel so ordered a throttle controller, on track and twisty roads it's woken the car up, it won't be for everyone but I like it.

I thought I was nearly done with the mods then RRP releasd his lightweight pulley set so those went on then I drove to see Carl for a remap, that's another lo wish cost mod that's well worth it, car pulls well, uses less fuel and it's nicer to drive.

That's the majority of mods up to now sorry for the essay and pics to follow!

Awesome Ed, really like it! Did the front bonnet vents have such an aerodynamic effect?

Cheers, they gave me an extra 10mph before I started to get a bit of lift, I have taken out the air filter lower tray so air can come in the grill go through the rad and hopefully out the vents. I need to tweak the spoiler a bit, I have an arc downforce meter to fit then I can start playing a bit more

Things are moving again after my cars winter slumber. Headed to wales a couple of weeks ago to meet NeilParry and MrSpiller and collect my cage that Neil made for me. Was meant to have a mate down by me fit it for me but he cba apparently so after hunting around I remembered a mate that used to work on my Nissan's who happens to be about 2 miles from Neil.... Left home at half five this morning after a couple of coffee stops got there for 9 for the cage to be welded in.
Teaser shot of the cage as I need to tidy the cabin and regret some if not all interior!

First thing was take the entire back end of the car apart to fit my r3 diff, i was certainly glad I got Nick to do that job, it's quite intense! We also fitted powerflex Diff bushes which has made the back end feel slightly tighter also give me a back massage with vibration on over run!

Next we fitted my mishimoto rad and fans as well as eBay special rad hoses (which fitted surprisingly well and look well made) then topped off with some fl22.

After that Nick fitted my rrp omp adaptor, not much to say about that!

Next up was the sump, the old one came off and oil pressure regulator got taken out and a 13black modified regulator went in its place, there is now a decent increase in oil pressure which pleases me. The stock sump went in the bin to be replaced with a greddy one coupled with an Essex rotary baffle plate.

Final thing we did was battery relocation, all started well then realised I didn't have enough cable to put it in boot, decided that we should outfit behind passenger seat but the battery was too big to fit comfortably, so the lovely Nick agreed to give me his teeny tiny race battery (I ordered him a shiny new one to replace).

Nick went above and beyond even offering to lend me his Clio of powerz and do more work on my car and drive it down to me .

Loughborough's Natwest branch may have some clue as to the cause of this.

ive-got-his-money-run-darla-run.jpg (34.1 KiB) Viewed 233 times

I can confirm that Ed indeed bought me a shiny new replacement glorified watch battery and cage after I made out that his standard battery would be ooohh so much faff to fit and he needed a super fast racetiem battery exactly like mine true gent, glad to help out where I can.

Did you find much difference on the track with the new rad and fan set up?

Cheers. It's getting there!
The rad does well I think seems to be able to handle decent hard track abuse for a fair about if time, if I was to do this again I prob wouldn't bother with the fans again, nothing wrong with stock ones!

Last edited by Eddie_r32 on Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.